It was such a stupid, small thing.

His chain had flipped while he was digging through his bag for his ID, clasp riding up under his chin instead of sitting flat against his collarbone. He hadn’t noticed. He never noticed shit like that when they were about to leave for a meet and his head was already halfway in the water.

“Hold still,” she said, already reaching for him.

“I’m holding still.”

“You’re fidgeting.”

“I’m not—”

“Nolan. Still.”

That voice. The one that dropped half a register and somehow shut his brain off completely. His body just obeyed. No argument. No joke. She stepped in close—closer than the job needed—and the second her fingers brushed the back of his neck everything in him went tight.

Cool fingertips against warm skin. A small tug. The soft click of the clasp coming free. He felt the chain slide, then settle. She should’ve stepped back. She didn’t.

Her free hand came up and rested flat in the center of his chest, palm pressed over the thin cotton of his shirt. Steadying herself—or him. He couldn’t tell anymore. Her knuckles dragged lightly across the hollow of his throat on the way there and his stomach dropped like he’d just pushed off the blocks too hard. He locked his jaw. Shifted his weight like that would do anything. His free hand flexed once at his side and stayed there, because if he touched her right now he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop at just touching.

Her shampoo. The clean, warm smell of her skin. Close enough that he could see the exact second her focus shifted—eyes flicking up to his for half a heartbeat before dropping again, deliberate, like she was forcing herself to keep looking at the chain instead of his mouth. He could feel her breath against the base of his throat. He could feel the heat of her palm bleeding through the fabric. And under all of it, the same thought he’d been trying to outrun for months: Don’t fuck this up. Don’t lose the only person who actually sees you.

“There,” she murmured, smoothing the silver flat against his collarbone with two slow fingers. Longer than it needed. Softer than it needed. “Fixed.”

She still didn’t step back.

Her hand stayed. Light pressure right over his sternum, and there was no way she couldn’t feel the way his heart was slamming against his ribs. No way she didn’t notice the way his breathing had gone shallow. He’d been half in love with her for so long it had started to feel like background noise—her laugh in the passenger seat, the way she stole his hoodies and left them smelling like her, the late-night debates that somehow made the rest of his life feel less hollow. Standing this close just made the noise deafening.

He looked down at her. She barely came up past his shoulder. From this angle he could see the curve of her lower lip, the way her lashes sat against her cheek, the tiny rise and fall of her chest that had picked up just enough to match his. His free hand twitched again, wanting the back of her neck, the soft place behind her ear, anything. He forced it to stay put.

“You know,” he said, and had to clear his throat once because his voice had already gone rough, “you’re making this really fucking hard for me right now.”

Her eyes lifted. “Making what hard?”

“You know what.”

“I genuinely don’t.”

Bullshit. She was still touching him. If anything her fingers had gone still, pressing just enough that he could feel the heat of her palm through the fabric. His own hand moved before he could stop it—caught her wrist, not hard, just enough to keep her there. His thumb settled against the soft inside of her wrist and found her pulse already racing under the skin. The knowledge that she was just as affected as he was made something dark and hungry twist low in his gut.

“That,” he said. The word came out quieter. Rougher. “This whole thing. Standing this close with your hand on my chest like you don’t know exactly what it’s doing to me.”

She didn’t pull away. Her breath hitched once, small, and he felt it more than heard it.